Currently, the majority of clothing sold in retail stores is mass produced in factories with the clothing being manufactured to limited standardized sizes. It is well known that the human body has a very delineated shape and that no two persons have an identical shape or body configuration. Consequently it is almost impossible to provide well fitted clothing that is completely acceptable to each customer through the use of several pre-set standardized clothing sizes and without any alterations when the clothing reaches the customer. For the retail distribution of other than tailored clothing, it is typical for retail establishments to fit each customer with clothing of an approximate size. Rarely does the clothing precisely fit the particular body configuration of the customer. Professional clothing salesmen will then typically mark the clothing for alteration and the clothing will be sent to a tailoring shop for adjustment. Thereafter, the customer must return to the retail establishment to pick up the clothing. At that time, the customer will typically put on the clothing to have the clothing inspected in its finished form to insure that proper tailoring adjustments have been made. In cases where the measuring or tailoring functions were inaccurate, the clothing at times will be sent back to the tailoring shop a second time for further adjustment. This is obviously a cumbersome, time consuming and expensive task.
In order to eliminate this cumbersome alteration process and to produce a better fitting factory manufactured clothing, it is necessary to provide an accurate measurement of the physical body configuration of each customer prior to manufacture of the clothing. Clothing that is made based on the actual measurements of each customer is commonly referred to as custom tailoring. One of the problems with custom tailoring is that it is not typically suitable for mass production and thus custom tailored clothing is much more expensive than factory manufactured, mass produced, ready to wear clothing. The hand labor that is required during fitting and custom manufacturing of the clothing typically increases the price of custom tailored clothing well beyond a price range that is suitable for the average customer.
The main difference between the refitting of factory manufactured ready to wear clothing and custom tailoring is that the measurement of the customer's body is done after the clothes are manufactured in the former case while the same is done before the clothes are made in the latter case. However, one common factor between these two approaches is the necessity of the presence of the customer at least once in order to either refit the clothing in the retail store or to measure the body configuration of the customer in a custom tailoring shop.
The conventional body measurement method commonly employed by tailors comprises the taking of a series of measurements around the customer's body utilizing a few different types of flexible tape measures. One of the problems of this method is that each measurement taken is almost independent of each other and the location of each measurement referenced to a particular portion of the body is not exact and it sometimes varies from one tailor to another.
In addition, each measurement is mostly in terms of length (inches or centimeters) and it lacks information pertaining to the shape or curvature of the body contour. Consequently, it is difficult to reproduce the exact shape and dimension of a customer's body at a clothing factory with the tailor provided measurements alone. More advanced manual measurement techniques utilize specially designed measuring devices with adjustable curvatures in order to measure delicate body contours more accurately. This measurement is usually done in the retail shop by a highly trained person and 50-100 measurements are often needed to describe the shape of a customer in detail. Although this method is very cumbersome and time consuming, it retains information pertaining to the curvature of most of body contours and thus it is far superior than the former method. However, the measurements provided by the latter method are still insufficient for the reconstruction of the exact shape of the customer's body in the factory simply because each measurement provided is almost independent to each other and information pertaining to the inter-relationship between the various body contours is lacking. One of the best methods of representing a three dimensional object with a series of contour lines is the use of a wire frame technique. This technique preserves the exact relationship between and each contour line which defines a three-dimensional object. The present invention utilizes the concept of the three-dimensional wire frame technique and thus enables the reconstruction of a customer body image almost perfectly at a remote factory utilizing the information provided by a tailor in a retail shop.
It is a principal feature of the present invention, therefore, to provide a system for accomplishing substantial mass production of clothing, which clothing is enabled to be accurately manufactured to the specific body dimensions of individual customers, thereby eliminating the need for alteration when the clothing is received by the customer.
It is also a feature of the present invention to provide a system whereby the body measurements of customers are taken by a computer and thereafter may be utilized directly or sent to a factory by suitable telemetry to thereby provide the clothing factory with the immediate capability for manufacturing clothing to the specific body measurements of the customer.
It is an even further feature of this invention to provide a novel system for tailoring clothing for customers, whereby a unique disposable body suit may be worn by the customer, which body suit is provided with a multiplicity of measurement indicia, thereby enabling the body dimensions of the customer to be measured by means of a video system, computerized and then provided to a clothing manufacturer to thus enable accurate and efficient manufacture of clothing to the specific body dimensions of the customer.